Grant Rants

Author Archive

About "grant.lafleche"

Grant LaFleche is a longtime, award-winning reporter at The St. Catharines Standard.
His column, The Grant Rant, appears twice monthly in The Standard as part of his effort to root out the burning stupid. Also, he looks awesome in a fedora.

I clearly remember the saddest moment of my childhood.
I had just turned nine. My friends and I were packed into a Calgary movie theatre to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
It was easily the most amazing thing I had seen. The story, the special effects. Ah-maze-ing! To this day it remains not only THE Star Trek film, but just a damn good movie.
And then it happened. In the final act of the film, Spock, my favorite Trek character, the one I identified with the most, died.
True, he died the most heroic of movie deaths, but he died nonetheless.
I was crushed.
The idea that heroes died wasn’t something that had really occurred to me before. But there it was. Spock was dead. Heroes die. Sometimes they have to die for the sake of their friends.
These were big ideas for my little brain to wrestle with. To this day, I tear up at that death scene and I’ve never forgotten it.
That punch-in-the-gut moment came rushing back Friday afternoon with the news that Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock since the first Star Trek pilot episode, passed away.
For me, like many who grew up watching the adventures of the Enterprise and her crew, Star Trek was more than just another TV show. It was a classroom that taught us about big ideas, about the world we lived in, about how to relate to other people and the importance of striving to do great things.
It also taught us that it was OK to be different. As a odd ball kid who was more at home reading than playing in the park, who often felt like an outsider, Nimoy’s portrayal of Spock was instructive.
Spock was a weirdo on that crew. The most alien of the bunch. The ultimate outsider. But his actions, driven by his intelligence and heart (even if he expressed it in cool, logical terms) is what made him great and won the unswerving loyalty of his friends.
Spock’s use of science, his ability to analyze data and his reliance on facts to solve problems had a lasting impact on me.
On a very personal level Star Trek taught me about friendship. That core group of Spock, Kirk and McCoy, were about as different as three people could be. They came from radically different backgrounds, had vastly different, usually conflicting, points of view about any given situation.
But they were always together. Forever loyal to each other, even when in the midst of a heated conflict. Even at their worst moments, they were at each others’ sides. That’s what friendship is supposed to be, isn’t it? Sticking together, through the worst of it, no matter what. Real friends never abandon each other. Ever.
This might all sound simplistic or like common sense, but in our popular culture there are very few examples of entertainment that can impart those kinds of lessons.
Even the new, flasher, updated Star Trek reboot is unable to capture that feeling which was so ably presented by Nimoy and his co-cast.
So Spock is dead, for real this time. No bringing him back, save for in re-runs. But that means he’ll keep teaching kids value lessons, even though he has boldly gone where we will all end up going.

I got an email from a reader the other day in response to a column I wrote about freedom of speech and the Charlie Hebdo attack, who asked:

“Having read your defence of free speech in tonight’s paper, I’m curious to know if you would defend the right of the “Gentlemen’s Club” members at Dalhousie University to post their despicable views on line. In other words, does freedom of expression have limits?”

This is my reply:

A good question. Generally speaking there are very very few limitations on free speech, even if the views expressed are awful.

Consider the case of a Holocaust denier. People who claim the Holocaust did not happen are not just wrong, but are spouting a racist lie. They tend to be pretty awful people who attack Jewish people in every speech or article written. There is, of course, no shortage of evidence to refute their claims, should one choose to do so. (I tend to ignore them. I also agree with Chomsky that to even enter into the discussion with a holocaust denier is to lose one’s humanity.)

So the holocaust denier says awful lies. Should their speech be protected? Yes. Because the solution to bad speech is more, better speech, not giving the state the power to silence someone because what they say is awful or offensive. We ought not give the state the power to silence those who question “truth”, even when the evidence is totally against them.

Also, as I noted, it is easy to be for free speech when the speech in question is what you like. You have to be in favour of free speech for the views you dislike, or you are not in favour of free speech.

So where, then, are the limits? This is essentially what you are asking. Can anyone say anything at anytime? Is everything said by the goons at Dalhousie U to be considered free speech?

The limit is generally drawn if through your speech you are making a threat to harm others, or cause others to be harmed. The classic example is being in a crowded theater and shouting “FIRE” when there is no fire. People could get hurt in the resulting stampede. So that is not protected as free speech. The police in Canada could charge the speaker with mischief. Similarly, if I were to say “we should kill everyone with blue eyes”, that could also be said to be speech that is not protected because I am threatening or inciting hatred or violence

In the case of DU, as I understand it, there is some debate over whether what these students said on their facebook group etc is protected as free speech. My own view of it at present is that while some of it may well be protected, as awful as it is, much of it could be viewed as inciting violence against women, and therefore not protected. From my point of view the guy who says “I hate women” is protected. He is a jerk but he is protected. The guy who says “We should drug and rape women” is inciting violence in this context, and therefore his speech is not protected.

This incident stands on the fuzzy line between what is free speech and what is not. I am not sure where the courts will go on this.

So apparently my column on the nature of science reporting has some creationists all tied up into knots.
The thrust of my piece was new BBC guidelines for its reporters that insists when reporting science that journalists actually report, you know, science. Creationists do not like this idea much because they want their particular origin myth to be factually true. It’s a line of reasoning that says if their version of the creation myth isn’t true, then nothing in the Bible is true, and their entire universe will collapse.

Of course, creationism isn’t science, has no scientific evidence, creationists produce no research and have discovered nothing. Which isn’t surprising, since religion isn’t science.

Doesn’t stop some of them from trying to claim it is. Take Herman Hunter of Niagara Falls, for instance, who writes:

Grant Rant July 14 “Science reporting should be based on science.” Grant rants as if evolutionary scientists have answers to where life began. He claims that invoking a supernatural act by a creator who is beyond our time/space universe is unscientific. But the naturalistic view of the origin of the universe has to explain how nothing became everything by itself. This view violates the known laws of science. The humanistic, material energy, chance world view, intolerantly uses every form of force at its disposal to make its world view the exclusive one taught. It is rather naive to think that nothing gave rise to something, that non-living matter gave rise to life. What was the first cause that caused everything else? Where did matter and energy come from? Where did intelligence originate? Are we to think of the universe as a massive perpetual-motion apparatus with some sort of impersonal “intelligence” of its own? Or is there a intelligent designer who created everything from nothing and set it all in motion? Evolution is really a fairy tale for grown-ups.

This is a common creationist line of thinking. They like to think it is logic. It is more like a highly selective constipated thought process. And it’s one that can be easily broken down thusly:

1) “He claims that invoking a supernatural act by a creator who is beyond our time/space universe is unscientific. But the naturalistic view of the origin of the universe has to explain how nothing became everything by itself. This view violates the known laws of science.”

This is all kinds of wrong. First off, the theory of evolution by natural selection describes how life forms on Earth change and adapt over time and how new species arise. It does not, in any way shape or form, discuss the origin of the universe. That is described in the big bang theory and related fields of science. These are entirely different scientific theories, describing different things, from different fields of study. Their only point of contact is that they do not invoke a god, which can be said for every single scientific theory. Because it’s science, not religion.

So Herman, you cannot say something violates the “known laws of science,” if you don’t know what science is.

2) The humanistic, material energy, chance world view, intolerantly uses every form of force at its disposal to make its world view the exclusive one taught.

Well, if you are talking about what is taught in a science class room, then yes. You see, in a science class you teach, you know, SCIENCE. Not religion. You can preach your origin myth all you want in your churches and temples. This is the great hypocrisy of the creationist. They want to preach in religion in science classes and have the Bible included as a science book. But you don’t see scientists knocking at the doors of Sunday school classes insisting on “equal” time for the germ theory of disease or evolution do you?

The creationist and like minded people appear to me to need a “them” to feel like they are under assault. Refusing to allow religious dogma into the science class or the lab is not religious persecution. It’s just good science.

Oh and by the way, while change plays a role in evolution in the form of mutation, evolution by natural selection is not a chance process. It is, in fact, a non random process. If it wasn’t, it won’t work.

3) It is rather naive to think that nothing gave rise to something, that non-living matter gave rise to life. What was the first cause that caused everything else? Where did matter and energy come from? Where did intelligence originate? Are we to think of the universe as a massive perpetual-motion apparatus with some sort of impersonal “intelligence” of its own? Or is there a intelligent designer who created everything from nothing and set it all in motion? Evolution is really a fairy tale for grown-ups.

And here is where the creationist babble gaff completely falls apart.
See the creationist likes to think they have a checkmate argument by saying “Well, how did the universe arise from nothing? That makes no sense. It had to be god.” Then when you say “Ok, and where did god come from?” they say “oh, well, ah, you see god always existed…or created himself…or something. Doesn’t matter.”

See, as Carl Sagan pointed out, if you want to postulate that the universe has a creator and that creator was never itself created, you really have explained nothing. You might as well skip a step and say the universe created itself. It makes as much sense.

What science ACTUALLY says is rather different from what Herman, and indeed most creationists will tell you science says. When it comes to the absolute origin point of our universe, science as three words: “We don’t know.”

There is nothing wrong with not knowing. It means we have more to learn. Big Bang cosmology has brought us very far in terms of understanding the origin of our universe. But there is still more to know and discover. And scientists are working toward better answers all the time. What scientists don’t do is fill in our ignorance with whatever fair story happens to appeal to them. Herman, on the other hand, is throwing up his hands and saying in effect “magic man did it,” and then claiming that is science.

The brilliance of science is that it works through evidence, observation, experiment, and constantly attempting to prove its own conclusions wrong. And it does not hide from it’s own ignorance.

Sorry, Herman, but you can’t make an effective argument if you don’t know what which you are trying criticize. Go back to school, son.

So, it is almost upon us. A pox potentially worse than Glee. A horror worse than any zombie movie or robot take over melodrama.

A 50 Shades of Grey movie is about to be released.
I have read some of these terrible books. When they became big hits, I tried to read them out of curiosity. When I encountered was a something that was so terrible it should come with a surgeon general’s warning. “Warning: This book is more terrible than terrible,” it would read.

The 50 Shades books were terrible. And by terrible, I mean, they were enough to rupture your brain, causing whatever intelligence you have to leak out into the atmosphere.

By terrible, I mean you will find better writing on a grocery list penned by a spastic seal writing on a soggy napkin in crayon.

By terrible, I mean having to listen to the Hamster Dance on repeat for 48 hours while having to eat mouldy cheeseburgers from MacDonalds is a preferable fate than having to read them.

By terrible, I mean by comparison, the movie Showgirls (maybe the worst movie of all time) will look like Citizen Kane by comparison to a 50 Shades Movie.

By terrible, I mean that being hung upside in a vat of leaches whilst a hungry badger gnaws upon your toes is a better fate than having to read a single paragraph of those books.

So now, someone decided: “Hey, remember that terrible series of books that, for reasons not even Stephen Hawking can understand, were super popular and women everywhere were devouring like some sort of evil, ink stained crack? Lets make a terrible movie out of them just to bring the end of the world closer.”

ugh. May Odin have mercy upon our souls.

Ps. Just how terrible is 50 Shades of Terrible? More terrible than this:

Earlier this month I wrote in my regular Grant Rant column that Pope Frank, for all his positive attributes, is doing the world a massive disservice with his bather about the Devil, about how he can cast out demons and allowing the Vatican to officially recognize a global exorcist organization. As has always happened the “exorcised” are the mentally ill who end up being, if you will excuse the phrase, demonized, abused and mistreated when what they need is medical attention.

I am going to reply to Joe’s letter in full because, well, it’s not often I am told I am really just a pawn of the devil doing the devil’s work by pointing out that exorcism is utter and total nonsense.

So Joe, you’d best wear a cup:

“A columnist’s job is to provoke, inform and entertain. Unfortunately, Grant LaFleche’s July 7 Rant bats 0-for-3. Instead of being provocative, it is simply mean-spirited; it lacks any useful information or insight; and its only entertainment value is in the writer’s laughable lack of knowledge or understanding of Catholic teaching.”

I am uncertain as to which teaching I am unclear on in this context. Is that the Pope believes in the devil? Is it that the Pope believes demons can inhabit the bodies of people and he can say prayers to cast them out? Because I think I am pretty clear on the church’s teaching when it comes to believing the ultimate boogeyman. I’ve also included an artist’s rendering of Satan to make the matter clear:

I am sorry you did not find my column entertaining Joe. True, I did not crack that many jokes, but then I don’t find the institutional abuse of the mentally ill a subject that is particularly funny. So, just to make sure you get your dollar’s worth, is a link to the mirror sketch done by Groucho Marx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5lU52aWTJo

“The column also raises a couple of questions, the most obvious being: why did he write it? Why does LaFleche, a self-described atheist, even care what Pope Francis says or does? When the Holy Father spoke of the need for a worldwide association of exorcists, he was addressing the world’s 1.5 billion Catholics, and no one else.”

For the same reason it matters when any religious figure with sway over millions says anything. I need not share in the Catholic faith to pay attention to what he says and does and decide for myself if what he says is good or bad, or will have positive or negative results. The pope is not some lone quack on a street corner barking at parking meters. He is the leader of the single largest and most influential religious organization on the planet. What he says, and what the Vatican does, has real world impacts. It influences the decisions of billions, with a B. And anything that can impact the lives of a billion of my fellow creatures is worth commenting on, particularly when the impact could be tragic.

“While LaFleche’s denial of the existence of demons is consistent with his denial of God, simply dismissing the whole notion as mere superstition is a non-argument and hardly the basis for a rational discussion.”

So what would be the basis for a rational discussion, exactly? Demons are a rational starting point? Accepting, without any real scientific evidence, that demon possession is real? That when someone is behaving strangely, or acting violently, or hearing voices, or has sudden personality shifts, or sees thing that aren’t there, we should consider demonic possession a real alternative “treatment”? That is not rational. That is, I am sorry to say, barking mad.

Imagine if we took this approach with every line of discourse. Someone believes, say, Elvis is still alive. Do we discount this belief because of the lack of evidence, or do we accept his belief on fact because he believes it?

We know what mental illness is. It is brain illness and while we have much yet to learn about the human brain, we know for a fact it is not caused by a demon or a witch or a warlock. The longer notions of supernatural malevolent influence continues to exist, the more people with mental illness will suffer. The pope and the Vatican should have disavowed exorcism, not called it charity and urged for compassionate treatment of the mentally ill and increased research into the causes and treatments of mental illness.

“LaFleche regards belief in demons as a holdover from medieval times, and therefore unworthy of consideration. On the contrary, the fact that there are enough active exorcists around to have an international association points to the existence of demons, and their continued influence throughout our world.”

Ah, man where in the name of Odin’s unseeing eye do even I start with this? Sigh….

Ok, so, here is the thing Joe. Just because lots of people believe in something, that doesn’t make that something true. If a billion people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. Facts are not determined by opinion polls, popularity contests, honestly held beliefs, ancient texts, or wish thinking. Facts are determined by evidence. QED. And there is no evidence, none, to support the conclusion that exorcism does anything other than abuse someone who is suffering from a mental illness or, perhaps, a chemically induced hallucination. In either case what is required is a medical doctor, not a voodoo man.

I mean, look, there are millions of people who believe that Elvis isn’t dead, the moon landing was faked, and the Loch Ness is home to giant, if sneaky, sea monster. Millions of Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad was carried to heaven on the back of a winged horse. Are we to conclude, then, that the Pegasus is real? Or we do concluded that Muhammad did not borrow a ride from Zeus, this is just an ancient myth, and horses don’t, in fact have wings?

Facts matter. Evidence matters. Compassion for the ill matters. Ancient rituals born from the darkness of human ignorance do not.

“Catholics believe in the existence of God, and of Satan, and they know that one of the devil’s most potent weapons is convincing us that he doesn’t exist. LaFleche’s vicious attack on the Church’s belief in Satan, may just prove the point.”

And there you have it. I am actually a pawn of Satan, doing his bidding by asking the Catholic Church to end a practice that victimizes some of the most vulnerable people in society. You cannot beat this kind of idea which regards any opposition to it as proof they are right.

Of course, Joe, what you haven’t considered is that maybe I am not a pawn at all. Maybe I am actually the Morning Star himself, the ruler of the underworld, disguising myself as a journalist who, after going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it, I write columns to make people think I am not real so I can silently build my army of evil. Maybe, pitch fork in hand, I am standing right behind you…

Still, Hudak continues to sell the jobs plan apparently taking a very Douglas Adams view that if he ignores the math problems, they won’t exist.

So now the Tories have released a new ad, trying to show Hudak as the Guy with the Plan, who Knows What is Really Wrong. Like a million people who woke up this morning without a job or a growing public sector draining our public resources.

Problem is, these claims are as wrong as his jobs plans numbers. Sun Media’s David Akin does a good break down of the ad and what is going wrong with the Tory campaign. Check it out here.

As it was at the recording studio the day before, Hudak’s team apparently is not bothering to pay attention to where in the space-time continuum they are sending their dear leader.

Then where was the whole Tim Hudak commercial thing that the Ottawa Citizen uncovered. Its a typically forgettable campaign commercial with Hudak trying to sound heroic while we see typical pictures of Ontario citizens hard at work building the Ontario of tomorrow. Except they aren’t Ontario citizens. Rather than take little bit of time to film, I don’t know, actual people from Ontario doing things people from Ontario do, the Progressive Conservative party decided to buy stock footage of Russians. The footage was bought by a Russian film maker who sells stock images.

In the grand scheme of things it is not that massive a deal. Lets face it, our government and corporations farm out work that could be done in Ontario to people around the country and the globe all the time. It’s frustrating, it hurts our local economy and is the reality of a global economy. No reason to expect the PCs do anything different.

Still, there is just something galling about a political leader and political party that cannot be bothered to use actual images of people in this province when you are asking us to vote for you to run Ontario. It’s pathetic actually. The party is saying it’s no big deal, this is how commercials are made so shut up about it. But we know if the Liberals, who are doing their own fair share of stupid by the way, did it the Tories would be all over them like a fat kid on candy.

It smacks of an epic laziness and contempt for Ontario residents to a) not use footage from Ontario and b) then dismiss anyone who complains about it. For good measure, the Tories used the opportunity to complain about the Liberals outsourcing security for the Pan Am Games to a U.S. firm. Certainly it is something to talk about, but the thing is when you get caught doing something stupid, the correct response is not to point out how the other guy did something more stupid.

I can only hope the Tories pull their act together soon. Or this is going to be a long long month.

I had intended to Tweet round-by-round the Floyd Mayweather vs. Marcos Maidana welterweight title fight Saturday night. I really did. But I only managed one Tweet.

It was after the fourth round concluded and I wrote “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Mayweather is losing. 3-1 for Chino.”

What I saw, watching the fight with friends at Shoeless Joe’s in St. Catharines, had me completely baffled. I had figured, like many boxing analysts, Mayweather would have an easy night. He would move, box smartly, and easily out point the slower, less gifted Maidana. Sure, Maidana is a relentless power puncher, but as Mayweather often says “skills pay the bills” and he has schooled better fighters than “El Chino.”

What happened was something that, I think, shocked many boxing watchers. Maidana swarmed all over Mayweather, throwing 100 punches in the first around alone. That non-stop volume of punches, combined with Maidana’s rough (and sometimes dirty) tactics, shut down a lot of Mayweather’s magic. At the half way point, I had Mayweather losing, something that totally shocked me.

I was unable to Tweet for the shock.

Even more bizarre, Maidana landed nearly as many punches on Mayweather as Mayweather landed on him – something that never happens. True, Mayweather’s connect percentage was much higher, but that doesn’t matter when scoring a fight. Maidana not only matched Mayweather in punches landed, and outlanded Mayweather in terms of power punches, he also hit Mayweather more, according to Compubox, than any other previous fighter.

Now, Mayweather did what he always does. He made mid fight adjustments to win rounds and ended up winning the fight. The official scores were 117-111, 114-114, and 116-112.

I scored it 115-113 for Mayweather – on the strength of his performance during the middle rounds – on par with many fight observers who gave Maidana’s raw and rough aggression more rounds than the judges did.

Maidana’s success was shocking in part because we have not seen, maybe ever, Mayweather have to work that hard to win a fight, to work that hard to keep an opponent off of him, to see him obvious lose rounds and potentially lose a fight. The look on Mayweather’s face at the end of the fight was the same look that Manny Pacquiao had after his third fight with rival Juan Marquez. It was a look that said “I hope I won, but I am not sure I did.”

Maidana’s success, which brought him within inches of handing Mayweather his first loss in 46 professional fights, demonstrated what a lot of people have thought about how a fighter might, maybe, be able to beat boxing’s pound-for-pound king. High octane aggression combined with relentless volume punching is probably the only way to get pasted Mayweather’s defensive genius and counter punching.

No one had really tried to do it since Ricky Hatton, who had a few rounds of success before Mayweather took over and Hatton began to fumble around the ring until he was stopped. The over rated Canelo Alvarez was regarded by many of having the power to disrupt Mayweather’s style, but Alvarez tried to play a tactical game in their fight. Which is like trying to out-think Bobby Fischer in a chess match. It just won’t happen.

Maidana, unlike Hatton, did not stop. He forced Mayweather to fight in the trenches and didn’t worry about getting caught with Mayweather’s sharp counter punches. Maidana and his trainers must have understood there was no way to avoid getting caught with counter shots by Mayweather, so don’t worry about it so much. It is going to happen no matter what you do, so accept that and keep moving forward.

Unlike everyone Mayweather has fought in recent years, Maidana did not freeze in place, worried about throwing punches because of the inevitable counter shots. He just plowed ahead. Most guys, when Mayweather cracks them with a counter punch, step back and try to reset their attack. But all that does is play into Mayweather’s hands. Maidana just took the punches, blocked and slipped when he could — his head movement was particular sharp — and kept attacking.

Seeing Mayweather that vulnerable, combined with Pacquiao’s sensational decision win over the then undefeated Tim Bradley a few months ago, immediately renewed talk of the long dreamed of super fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather.

A lot of people thought that Pacquiao would be unable to get past Mayweather’s great defense to land his lightning fast combos and do the kind of damage that he’d have to in order to win the fight. But to my thinking, if Maidana can get to Mayweather, Pacman certainly can. Pacquiao is much faster in terms of footwork and handspeed than Maidana is, he puts pressure on fighters better than Maidana can, and he has a more versatile arsenal of punches. Pacquaio attacks from weird angles, has the best footwork in boxing, and throws fast, hard combos better than just about anyone else.

The Maidana and Bradley fights proved, to me at least, that far from being a mismatch, a possible Mayweather vs. Pacman fight remains the best match that can be made in boxing – if only the two sides stopped acting like children and made the fight happen.

Look, I think Mayweather still would have to be the betting favorite if he did ever fight Pacquiao. Not because Mayweather is undefeated to date, but because Pacquiao always has the hardest time with highly defensive opponents. Mayweather is the best defensive fighter of this generation, hands down. And lets not forget Mayweather’s uncanny adaptability in the ring — his ability to make adjustments mid fights has won Mayweather many bouts, including Saturday’s brawl with Maidana.

But, the success Maidana had against boxing’s pound-for-pound king, should show any educated boxing observer that a potential Mayweather-Pacquiao isn’t the blow out some think it would be. To my eye, it would be highly competitive.

So we have two brilliant of episodes of Cosmos in the can, and I am completely blown away. The last episode on evolution and how life develops was amazing. This is every bit as good as I had hoped and a worthy sequel to Carl Sagan’s original.

In 1980 the late, great, scientist Carl Sagan broadcast Cosmos: A Personal Journey on PBS. In the 13 part series, Sagan took viewers through the evolution of human knowledge, from our primitive ignorance to our tentative steps into the inky black of space. And he showed us how much more we have to yet to learn about the universe we live in and the planet we call home.

The series, and its companion book, changed forever how I looked at the world. Even as a kid, the spectacular scope of the universe, the bewildering kaleidoscope of what is actually out there in the space, captured my imagination and never let go. My passion and interest in science all stems from that TV series and that book.

We’re about to be treated to something just as awesome again. Astronomer Neil Degrasse Tyson – who was profoundly influenced by Sagan in his own career – is leading new version of the series. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey starts Sunday on FOX.